Chicago Road Trip

Over the weekend, my friend Emily and I took a road trip to Chicago – driving 900+ miles in 40 hours – to see our friends Melisa and Wally who were there visiting from Guatemala. It was a quick trip, sort of last-minute and definitely not very planned out ahead of time (we left as soon as I finished my night shift on Friday morning, we arrived in Chicago with only the phone numbers of the people with whom our friends would be staying but had at that time not been able to reach anyone and had no idea as to exactly where they’d be and when, and we needed to be back home before Sunday morning). But despite all that, we eventually did find our Guate friends and were able to spend most of the day with them on Saturday...

Emily and I met in Guatemala when I was studying abroad and on summer staff in 2004. At the time, she was on staff with the mission organization that I was working with and even lived with us in the summer staff girls’ room for awhile. Since then, Em has returned to MN (we both had lived here and gone to Bethel University, but never knew each other until Guate) and I am thankful for the chance to live near her again until I leave for Mexico!

Wally is the director of a school in Guatemala called Escuela Vida y Esperanza (School of Life and Hope). I met him while I was in Guate and hadn’t seen him since leaving more than 4 years ago. I never got to know Wally super well in Guate, so it was fun to spend more time with him now.

Melisa is an English teacher at Escuela Vida y Esperanza. While I was in Guate, I worked at CHAN (the Community Health and Nutrition site) with her husband Tito. They would invite us over to dinner at their home, which is how I first came to know Melisa. I hadn’t seen her since she and Tito came to MN about 3 years ago. Tito and Melisa’s first son was just born when I arrived in Guate…and now Josué is almost 5 and their younger son Elías is 2 years old! It was wonderful to see Melisa again, and it makes me long even more to see the rest of her family...

I am so thankful for the opportunity that we had to spend a day with Melisa and Wally – it was great to see them again after so long and was well-worth the long drive!